July 26, 2004

Yeah. And stuff.

1. Skipping and Running
Neither, unless I'm wearing a really really good sports bra, and then I'll pick running, for about the length of time it takes me to hurt either my knee or my ankle [which is about a block].

4. Laptop or Desktop
Never used a laptop, but I'll probably go with desktop because the regular-size keyboards are too damn small to start with.

5. Cold Weather or Hot Weather
Don't they both suck? Okay, okay, I'll take cold weather if I'm someplace where I can get indoors quickly. At least the cold doesn't make me dizzy or give me nosebleeds.

6. Swimming or Bicycling
Swimming. Now that I can do it without drowning [sorta], I like it better than cycling because it doesn't leave my knees in agony for the next week.

7. Chocolate or Vanilla
Chocolate.

8. Day or Night
Night. Nobody's running around yelling their heads off or or using circle saws or playing their car stereos.

9. Looks or Brains
Brains.

10. Cable, DSL, or Dial-Up
Dial-up. Nobody has the patience to try to hack you at 56K/second anymore.

Last week's MM [holy nuts, this is a lot of questions]:

1. Do you prefer to be out in the sun or in the shade?
In the shade. Let somebody else play "Fun With Malignant Melanoma."

2. Regarding the walls in your house, do you prefer neutral colors or bright colors?
Neutral, medium-to-dark colours. If I want to be driven insane by my surroundings, I'll move to St. Paul. And no damn white walls! What is with the white walls in apartment complexes? Are they actively trying to make everybody feel like they're in the hospital?

3. When hanging pictures on your walls, do you like things symmetric or asymmetric?
I don't hang pictures on the walls, usually. I can't think when there's too much visual stimulation. The blank walls are relaxing. And what do you mean by symmetric? Do you mean, like, "okay, I have 2 8x10's on the left side of the wall, so I have to have 2 8x10's on the right side of the wall"? I don't have any walls that have anything remotely resembling an even left and right side, so I don't worry about it.

4. How about where you'd like to live; country or city?
Gee. Fresh air or pollution? Peace and quiet, or people crammed all over every inch of your body everyplace you go? Tough choice. It's like this: If you live in the country, you're gonna have to drive a ways to the grocery store. If you live in the city, you're gonna have to either a] drive a ways to the grocery store or b] take a bus to the grocery store and be limited to purchasing whatever you can carry home in your flaccid white arms. The only out would be to live in a small town/city or a suburb where you're close to a store and only have to drive a short distance. Same for the gym, the doctor, school, work, anyplace else you go. And in the country, you can go outside and do whatever the hell you want in your backyard without worrying about people staring at you. That's worth an extra couple tanks of gas to me. And no burbs, please. Who the hell wants to live someplace where you can drive for an hour and a half and see nothing but stores, car dealerships and human dwellings? Ick.

5. Your blog; Blogger, Blogdrive, Blog-City, or another one altogether?
It's on this page. I'll secretly transfer 1000 invisible dollars into your PayPal account if you can find it.

6. Email; Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, or other?
Yahoo; I have a Hotmail account but I never use it, because, well, why would anybody use an MSN service any time they didn't absolutely have to?

7. Air conditioning or just a fan when it's hot at night?
Usually air. The main reason it stays hot at night is that I live in a brick building, which turns into a kiln throughout most of the summer because brick retains heat exceptionally well. The end result of that is that it can be 52 degrees out and I'll be sweltering indoors in my undies. [I could open a window, but...um...summer...pollen...rural Minnesota...No.]

8. Dinner; seafood or steak?
Those are my only choices? I was hoping for, I don't know, some lasagna or something. I suppose I'll have to go with the seafood, but only if it's real seafood and not that crappy MSG-filled fake crab or whatever; and nothing breaded, cos the jerks always put flavour enhancers in the breading. Generally not steak for the following reasons: One, meat packing plants don't go to enough effort to wash the poop off the beef; two, the meat grading system is corrupt, meaning you end up with practically dog-food grade meat being called "steak"; and three, it's too hard to get steak well-done without turning it into rubber, and the day I resign myself to eating raw bloody meat, I'll go live in the woods and wipe my ass with leaves.

Now here's a question for you: Do you actually know anybody who eats seafood and/or steak on anything even resembling a regular basis [with the exception of those semi-vegetarians who eat fish but not birds or mammals]?

9. Your all-time favorite music media; CD's, cassette tapes, or vinyl (or 8-tracks)?
Probably CD's, except for the fact that my car has no CD player, and my portable CD player always skips if I use it on the road. So tapes in the car, and CD's everyplace else.

10. When learning a new software program, do you find it easier to follow a book or an online tutorial?
People actually do that? Wow. I just dink with it until I figure out what it does.

July 24, 2004

Quote for the day

I found this quote in an e-mail from Storyteller, the last gal to continue doing the 8 Ball meme when it was discontinued. I thought it was so good, it deserved its own entry.

"The thing about happiness is that it doesn't help you to grow; only
unhappiness does that. So I'm grateful that my bed of roses was made up
equally of blossoms and thorns."
-- Lana Turner

Maybe it's just that time of the Depo cycle, but that made me tear up a little. It's also an excellent thing to say to those damn happiness snobs who ask you if you're "happy" or "happy enough" in order to imply that by not being happy at the exact moment they asked, you've failed in your life somehow.

Besides, people whose main aim in life is to make themselves happy are the reason that more isn't being done about poverty, AIDS, overpopulation, you name it.

July 23, 2004

J3sus Rulzz! lol

In May, the Columbus (Ohio) City Council approved a building permit for the Faith Christian Center ("On Fire for God") to construct a 52,000-square-foot commercial complex centered on an indoor skateboard park, and including a restaurant, arcade and pro shop, named Godz Xtreme Power Park.

Godz Xtreme Power Park. Mmmmmm...kay.

It could just be me, but I'm starting to think that some segments of the Christian population are getting just a smidge too desperate in their attempts to attract children to the religion. What's next, Christian breakfast cereal? I'm fully expecting to see Christ-O's or something soon, with little cross-shaped bits made from corn and wheat, and little fish-shaped marshmallows. And the commercials will have Jesus skateboarding and playing an electric guitar, while kids cheer heartily nearby and then rush en masse to a table laden with bowls of Honey Frosted Christ-O's for a spiritually satisfying breakfast [fortified with 11 vitamins and minerals and 100% of the daily recommended allowance of 8 different saints]. "Get your daily dose of the Lord every morning with Christ-O's!"

Oh, please, let monotheism crumble. Any time would be good. As long as there's something like Secular Humanism or something reasonable to take its place instead of the "Oh gee, God's dead, I suppose we can do whatever we want now" philosophy people seem to have picked up.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Quote for the day: "Because goodness knows, bigots need more of a voice in this country! Why don't we just pick up a strip drawn by a Klansman? I mean, I don't see that viewpoint represented much in the comics pages either!" D.C. Simpson, on the poorly drawn and politically conservative Prickly City comic strip [which is currently comparing gay marriage to human-animal marriage--says a lot about what the writer of that strip thinks of gay people]

July 22, 2004

blech

I have hot water back as of yesterday afternoon.

The doctor apparently thinks I'm doing absolutely nothing about losing weight. This may actually be true. However, I'm still doing all I can. I'm getting sick of listening to her beg me to lose weight like I'm some stubborn eight-year-old that won't eat their green beans. As for limiting my salt intake, my salt intake is just fine, thank you very much, and my workplace is full of machines throwing off heat and is not air conditioned. So this time of year, I sweat pretty much constantly.

She wanted me to go on HCTZ until I reminded her that I'd been on it before and that it made my hair fall out. She was dubious about this [which is odd, since she wasn't when I first mentioned it to her]; but when she started in on me about the 20 minutes a day of exercise again, I explained to her that even if the exercise I get at work doesn't "count," it's still enough to necessitate icing my knees when I get home in the morning, as well as after every walk and every swim lesson. That sorta sunk in. Good thing something did. And, you know, they're all like that, doctors. They don't remember shit. It's like you're a whole new person every time you go in.

I'm so exhausted I can't believe I made it home alive.

Things aren't going well between me and my mom. I'd go into detail, but the last time I talked about my family, somebody made a cunty remark about it being dysfunctional, so I think I'll keep it to myself until I'm actually in the mood for some troll-stomping.

Oh, and I deleted the Magic 8 Ball blog. There was just one person doing it, and it was getting to be a pain in the ass, what with the spam and everything. And frankly, it wasn't fun anymore. So anything here that links to that doesn't go anywhere anymore.

July 19, 2004

Sex, Blood and Pentagrams

Have you ever performed sex magic? If not, how do you feel about sex magic?
Yes, I have.

Have you ever used blood in a rite or ritual? If not, how do you feel about using blood in a rite or ritual?
I've never had occasion to use blood, that I can recall. I would only use it for a very personal spell in which I needed an extra oomph and couldn't get it by using other materials such as hair, nails or saliva. [I don't menstruate anymore, so I'd have to injure myself to get blood, and I'm not into self-mutilation, thank you very much.] I wouldn't use anybody else's blood.

What would you consider to be your most unusual rite or ritual?
See question 1. The details are between me and my grimoire, and I'm perfectly fine with them staying that way.

Dear Landlords,

In a way, I'm sorry to hear that you had to close the restaurant downstairs. But not very sorry, because now I don't have to listen to your fucking TV or your bullhorn-voiced customers who feel it necessary to bellow and shriek their conversations across the length of the room. If I want to cast a circle or meditate early in the morning, I can do it without undue fear of interruption.

So I hate to be such a harpy about this, because it's only been a day and a half and so far I've only had to take one refugee-style shower using pots of microwaved water, but...

CAN I HAVE MY GODDAMN FUCKING HOT WATER BACK, PLEASE???

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Your loving tenant, who is resisting the overwhelming urge to make dolls of you, drive rusty nails into them and set them on fire.

July 17, 2004

W00T!

I swam!! For, like, several feet! With no noodles or flotation devices or anything! And I didn't sink!

I have never done that before in my life.

Also, I bought Velvet Revolver's Contraband yesterday. If you liked either STP or G'n'R, you'll like this. Drugs or no drugs, Scott Weiland is still a great lyric writer, and while there are a couple more clunkers than in some of the old STP records, and the vocal track occasionally gets buried by the guitars, the lines still flow well, and his voice sounds as good as it ever did. Slash, needless to say, is excellent as always, and the rest of the band does a great job of melding their styles into an ass-kicking sound. Also, the fact that it's a new record by somebody who's not pretending to be Tool, Alice in Chains, Metallica, the Sex Pistols or Poison is noteworthy in and of itself. The caveat of that, of course, is that they're all experienced musicians from other bands that combined tried-and-true good sounds to get a new good sound [much like Audioslave], not a new band with a truly original good sound. But until another Dylan or Nirvana comes along [and no, people, Nickelback are not it], this will do very, very nicely.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Lyric for the day:sometimes is all the time
and never means maybe
sometimes is all the time
maybe
and i'm moving on...

...i never noticed
how lovely were the aliens
lovely were the aliens
--VR, "Loving the Alien," Contraband

July 15, 2004

Meth Grannies!

More than 20 seniors headed to the New Ulm Community/Senior Center on Tuesday to get a unique look at the technology local emergency vehicles use on a daily basis.

[snip]

The methamphetamine presentation gave seniors a real-life look at the dangerous homemade drug. Meth was passed around, showing seniors know what it looks like, and they were told what to expect if a meth house was next door.

Meth stirred the most curiosity from the seniors, who posed questions such as: How do people buy it? How do people take it? How much does it cost?

This is exactly what the camp was designed to do - provide education, organizers said.

[underlines mine]

Now, either that was a not-too-carefully-edited article, or those seniors are REALLY getting sick of the cost of prescription drugs.

"How are you today, Ethel?"

"Fantastic, Elmer, ever since I started taking the meth!"

"Eh? Meth? You don't say..."

"Yupper! I can crochet twice as fast now! And I don't fall asleep on the pot anymore, either!"

"You're shittin' me. How much does it cost?"

"Not nearly as much as that damn heart medicine that quack was having me take. And I feel as spry as a 20-year-old! Matter of fact, I bought it from a 20-year-old!"

July 13, 2004

Sweet Blessed Silence!

The restaurant downstairs is closed. On a Tuesday. A day it's supposed to be open. And there's no notice on the door saying "We will be closed Tuesday, July 13" or "Temporarily closed--will reopen on xx/xx." It's just...closed.

And yesterday I got a notice taped to my door requesting that I begin sending my rent to the landlords' home address. Up to now, I'd been dropping it off downstairs at the restaurant counter.

So I think it might be closed for good.

W00T!!!!!11!

No more "mumblemumblemumble" from the TV and the customers. No more rattling, clattering pans. No more having to wear headphones when I play guitar for fear of the sound carrying downstairs [it won't carry next door as long as it's not super-loud and I don't play it in the living room].

Now, what this will mean for my rent, I don't know. However, if they've closed for good, they won't have any operating expenses to cover--just the taxes on the building and the utilities for the apartments. And I'd be willing to bet that the rents were helping cover the operating expenses, because the customers sure weren't doing it. So I doubt my rent will go up. If they don't come in in October and turn the furnace on at least a little, though, it'll be a damn cold winter.

But for right now...

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Word for the day: tapeinocranic. [ta-'py-no-'kray-nik] n. Having a low skull flattened in front with a cranial breadth-height index of less than 92. [Merriam-Webster]

July 06, 2004

Some people...

July 05, 2004

Meanderings

This week's Witches Weekly is about children, and answering the questions would require me to imagine myself having children. Since thinking along those lines tends to give me hives, I'm going to give it a miss this time around.

Something on my left side hurts, and it feels too low to be either an ovary or a ureter. Can't figure it out. Hm. Could be a ureter. Whatever it is, it sucks.

Do you ever get those little bumps on your hands and fingers that look like they're full of some clear fluid, but they're way too small to be blisters and they don't actually hurt? And they have this sticky clear stuff in them, and when you clean them out, they leave a hole that goes all the way down to your dermis? I wonder what causes those. I'd really like to know, because they've stopped appearing individually and started appearing in clusters. Maybe it's herpes or something.

4th of July went okay. Went over to eat with the parental units, and did part of a puzzle featuring some orcas, which Dad deliberately referred to as "okras." For some reason, this tickled me, and I called them okras for the rest of the day. No fireworks were set off. A good time was had by all. Here's hoping all the WB readership [yes, both of you] had a good 4th as well.

I finally got lonely enough to start a friendster account. Only problem is, in order to do anything with the account, I have to have received the confirmation e-mail so I can a] click the link in the e-mail to confirm it; or b] type the confirmation code into the box on the web page. Why is that a problem? Well, it sent the e-mail half an hour ago, and I generated another 3, and none of them have shown up in my inbox. Yes, my address was spelled right. I'll wait a while longer, and then try with another e-mail address. That'd be depressing, if friendster wasn't working; last time I tried to join a site to meet people was CeliDate, for which I'd had high-ish hopes, and that site was completely defunct. [I still haven't received an answer to my e-mail asking why their profile page doesn't work. I think it's been something like 2 months. Maybe the webmaster gave up being celibate and is fucking his brains out somewhere, too busy to answer e-mail.]

In any case, I'm hoping it doesn't have anything to do with the e-mail virus that is hijacking my mail program and sending spam about elderly naked people, generating mailer-daemon failure notices by the handful daily.

There's more stuff, but I'm not sure I wanna talk about it here. It'll just get too long.

July 03, 2004

Yayyyyy!

A witch meme! [Okay, these are questions from 26 June, but I'm doing them anyway.]

Do you wear any religious symbol jewelry/clothing? If so do you wear it openly in public?
I wear a pentagram pendant sometimes. No, I do not wear it openly. I generally keep it under my shirt, though if it falls out, I don't get too worried. Yes, I'm a puss. The area I live in is very small-town and Lutheran. I don't want trouble, and I'd be retarded if I thought I could wear that in front of the gods and everybody and not cause trouble. Legally, they can't do anything to you, but a lot of people will try, and if you want to stand up for yourself, then you have a lawsuit on your hands. Also, treating you like shit is perfectly legal, and they know it. They don't even have to do anything illegal to make your life miserable. Some people might thrive in an environment where they're treated nasty, but I'm not one of those people. So excuse me for not being a martyr for my beliefs, but I'd like to enjoy my life at least slightly, thank you all the same.

How do you feel about the issue of wearing religious symbols in schools and how some young teens are forced to remove their religious fashions?
I think as long as it's not causing disruption, people should be allowed to display their religious affiliation on their persons. Where else are they going to learn to tolerate other people's beliefs? In addition, it helps students to identify those who have the same, or widely divergent, beliefs as their own, so they have a better idea of who to try to make friends with.

At the same time, you know how teenagers are. Give them a chance to be different and stand out, and they'll take it. They'll also ride each other into the ground over the differences. The problem with religious jewelry is that it's one more excuse for people to form cliques, which tend to foster an "us vs. everybody else" attitude. And for young people who get really seriously into their religion, it's practically gang colours.

In the end, I think it should be handled by the school. I do NOT think that any school that allows children to wear crosses should disallow pentagrams or symbols of other religions. Either all students should be free to wear religious jewelry or clothing, or--if there's too much fighting between students because of religious differences brought to a head by the apparel--none should. Personally, I think they should incorporate religious tolerance into the curriculum the way they've incorporated African-American and women's issues.

Have you ever experienced a confrontation about wearing your jewlery in public? How did you handle the situation if so?
No.

July 01, 2004

Harry Potter and the Infuriatingly Ambiguous Book Title

I was in a books & lit chatroom the other day, and somebody burst in claiming to know the title of the upcoming Harry Potter book. Before anybody could protest [there were 2 HP fans in the room, and neither I nor the other gal wanted the suspense ruined], the bastard blurted it out in the mistaken idea that anybody really wanted to know, or that the information was the slightest bit useful. None of the titles of the previous books have had anything to do with anything in any of the previous books--for example, you have no earthly idea what the hell a Goblet of Fire is until you've actually read HP and the Goblet of Fire. So not only does blabbing the title ruin the suspense, it doesn't actually tell you jack shit. Well, the suspense got ruined anyway, because it's now been blabbed all over the planet and is no longer a secret.

A friend of mine and I agreed that the title, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was sort of lame-o. In fact, so are a lot of the titles, although the books themselves aren't bad at all, if you like twisty plots and easy-to-read vocabulary. [After a long, brain-mashing night at work, that's right up my alley.] So I came up with some titles that, apropos or not, are at least a smidge more, well...

~HP and the Pernicious Rash

~HP and the Dried-Up Sharpie Marker

~HP and the Paris Hilton Video Bootleg

~HP and the Half-Assed Meet & Greet With Prince

~HP and the Really Old Pizza That Achieved Consciousness

~HP and the Jehovah's Witnesses

~HP and the Ravenwolf Dipshits Who Think He's Wiccan

~HP and the Mystery Of Morning Wood

~HP and the Spare Change Between The Sofa Cushions

~HP and the Swedish Airline Hostess

~HP and This One Dude Who Was, Like, A Total Asshole And Stuff [hmm, that pretty much sums up all the books, doesn't it?]

~HP and A Whole Bunch Of Crap About Penguins And Wands And Whatnot

~HP and the Overzealous HP Fans Who Use The Characters' Names As Their Chatroom Names

~HP and the...ah, fuck it, I can't think of anymore.

Well, that's enough of that for today. I have to go have my eyes examined. Toodles, ladies, lords and other...

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Quote for the day: "I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls." Job 30:29